By John Helmer, Moscow When the Russian delegation arrives in Peru next week for a fresh session of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), it is proposing several initiatives for debate and vote. None of them proposes to cut greenhouse gas emissions below the target set a year ago by President Vladimir […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Interpol has issued a Wanted Notice for Sergei Pugachev, making him the first Russian oligarch to have Russian charges of fraud endorsed by the international police organization – and to make a money-launderer of the Financial Times. If Pugachev crosses the border between his homes in England and France, the policemen […]

By John Helmer, Moscow When an elephant means to put his foot down on something with the objective of crushing it, a German speaker uses the same word as in English – trample (trampeln). When the intention and the outcome are emphatic, an English-speaker can say trample underfoot. When German Chancellor Angela Merkel (lead image) […]

By John Helmer, Moscow The war against Russia outside Russia is being lost inside Russia. If the Allied strategic bombing campaign against Germany’s cities failed seventy years ago, and since then every US attempt to topple Middle Eastern and South American regimes, what reason or reward do the bow-and-arrow brigade have for thinking otherwise? The […]

By John Helmer, Moscow If you think Russia’s food supply is crashing under the impact of international sanctions because that’s what the Obama Administration is telling its media, think again. This week’s reported panic over the staple buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum, groats, grits, гречневая крупа) is a figment.

By John Helmer, Moscow When Alfred Sloan ran General Motors in Detroit, he supplied Nazi Germany with engine technology, assembly lines, and working capital for Messerschmidt and Junker warplanes, Panzer tanks, troop and gun transports, along with land mines and torpedo detonators. The Germans said they couldn’t have invaded Poland, Belgium, Holland, Norway, France, or […]

By John Helmer, Moscow Petropavlovsk Plc has almost run out of tricks. Advertisements placed at the start of this month in the London papers that the goldminer may be on the receiving end of a Russian-funded bailout lifted the London Stock Exchange share price for less than 24 hours. The market capitalization has since continued […]

By John Helmer, Moscow United Company Rusal, the state aluminium monopoly run by Oleg Deripaska (lead image), has announced a third-quarter profit of $25 million, its first bottom-line in the black for three years. The company’s report explains the result by pointing to production cuts, the decline in costs of production, and a rise in […]

By John Helmer, Moscow It can be no surprise, not even to Russian dunces, that Suleiman Kerimov, the only Russian oligarch and senator of the Russian parliament who has never answered a question in public, has been trying to cash out of Polyus Gold, and can find no takers. Especially not at the current price […]

By John Helmer, Moscow There is no word in the language of Australian soldiers or sailors for tit-for-tat. American military strategists, the uniform and the armchair types, are much better acquainted. The latter understand exactly why a squadron of the Russian Pacific Fleet has sailed to a position within helicopter (and nuclear-armed missile) range of […]